Monroe

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-two. Headaches.

Bob stood up carefully. Five-fold rituals were much more efficient, but they required him to remain seated and still while channeling the mana out of the crystals, through his matrix, and into the ritual. The size of the ritual mattered as well, as increasing the size of the ritual also increased the number of crystals required, which increased the amount of time needed.

It had taken him six hours to excavate the space for the floor and then another eight hours to cast the ritual needed to align the currents of mana, maintain a breathable atmosphere and a temperate climate, and finally to ensure proper drainage while preventing groundwater from entering the floor. He was keeping things simple, each floor looking much like the others, supportive columns evenly spaced.

Bob wanted to knock out one floor a day, although he suspected that as he increased the size of the floors, which he planned to do at each threshold, that plan would fall apart. Still, this was another seventy-five person floor, or he thought it would be. He knew that he couldn't hold a candle to the Path of Endless Swarm when it came to clearing monsters. He was going off the assumption that most Adventurers would be able to handle two pools at this level without an issue.

Eddi had mentioned that the Endless were handling the lower levels of the Dungeon in Holmstead with a fraction of their numbers. Considering that Eddi was rocking nine T-rex packs with eight in each, he wasn't surprised. One pack could handle two pools with ease, allowing just one of the Endless to occupy sixteen spawns without needing to lift a finger. Literally, Eddi had trained Reximus to pick up the mana crystals for him.

He'd planned to have room for three hundred people on the twenty-sixth through thirtieth floors, but assuming people took advantage of the Endless Swarm, he'd need those floors to support twenty-four hundred spawning pools.

'Trebor,' Bob asked as he carefully stretched his aching muscles, 'is that something that can be done? There's a limited amount of mana that we can pull in from the area, right?'

'Both yes, and no,' Trebor replied, 'you can make a floor that large; however, you'll be very close to completely occupying the one square mile you've allocated. If you follow that trend for each of the Dungeons you plan to build, you'll find that to build further down, following the same pattern will require you to alternate which Dungeons are deeper, as they'll start occupying space directly beneath another Dungeon.'

'In regards to the mana, you'll find that the more mana you pull in, the more mana moves to replace it, up to the maximum density available on the planet,' Trebor finished.

"Even stopping at the thirtieth floor, assuming I can get all forty Dungeons going at once, running twenty-four seven, three shifts of eighty hours, that's one hundred and eighty thousand people delving, just on those levels," Bob muttered, doing the math in his head. "That's probably forty million crystals a day."

He rechecked his math. Twenty-four hundred pools spawning every five seconds was twenty-eight thousand eight hundred monsters per minute. Sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day, multiplied by five floors. Assume a minimum coalescence percentage of two percent, and you'd get around four point one million crystals.

Bob nodded. Spread that over forty Dungeons, and you'd end up with forty-four million crystals a day, give or take.

Bob dropped through a portal into his inventory. If he was hungry, Monroe had to be starving.

Bob immediately regretted leaving the nice, calm, peaceful, empty seventh floor of the Dungeon. He entered the tavern just in time to be waylaid by Detective Hanson, Dave, Amanda, Jack, and Raul.

"Outside," Bob grumbled, walking out of the tavern in search of a quieter place to hold whatever discussions they were seeking. He didn't find it.

There were Marines everywhere. The rows of tents had been removed, and in their place were large, freshly poured concrete pads. He knew they were freshly poured for two reasons. First, they glistened in the evening sun. Second, there were a row of concrete mixing trucks, with one still pouring the last pad in the row.

He rubbed his temples and shook his head. "I don't care," he muttered, "I don't want to know."

"About that," Mike said, "about a dozen Lance Corporals wound up doing construction, and with the help of Raul," he nodded, "they figured life would be better with some Quonset huts, as opposed to tents."

Mike continued, "So they had some of the kids portal them back to Earth, rented some trucks, and brought them back here. They're due to take them back yet tonight, but so far, we're right on schedule."

Raul spoke up, "Being able to source concrete from Earth will make building those towers you want a lot easier," he jerked a thumb to the south, "also, I know a guy who handles cutting the brush out from under the powerlines, if we can cure his dad's cancer, he'll come over and start clearing the area's were going to want to build, although," he paused for breath, "we also need a surveyor, and...." He trailed off. "Well, we need a lot more," he said, "but getting the area cleared will help. I know things are pretty even here, but closer to the streams and further down, it gets both hilly, and then you start seeing scrub and then trees."

"We went back with one of the Endless," Dave said, "made a few calls, sent out text messages and emails."

"Quite a few responses," Amanda smiled, "we're looking at about sixty D&D players gathering at what the marines are referring to as 'xf-one' tomorrow afternoon, so if you could knock out some more bags of holding, that would be awesome, and much more friendly than just kicking them through a portal, like you did to poor Mike," she finished, winking at Mike.

"I went along, and I received a few replies to the feelers I'd put out for a civil engineer," Jack added, "I'm planning to bring them into the fold alongside the D&D players."

Bob had his eyes closed as he massaged his temples. As the flow of information stopped, he raised his head and cautiously opened an eye. Everyone was still there, looking at him.

"You're in charge," Mike broke the silence, "so we figured we ought to let you know what's going on."

"What idiot put me in charge?" Bob muttered quietly.

"You sort of put yourself in charge," Mike replied, and Bob could hear the grin in his voice.

"And on that note, I've assigned two Corporals on each shift the task of collecting the mana crystals gathered," Mike added, handing Bob the dice bag he'd been given.

"I've received numerous requests asking if Marines can bring their families over, mostly mothers and fathers with the occasional sibling mentioned," Mike went on, "which raises the question; how are we dealing with non-combatants?"josei

Bob had given a little thought to this. "That depends on if they are skilled or unskilled, as well as their willingness to work. We need support personal to cook, clean, grow food, harvest food, and obviously to help build the towers. What we don't have the capacity for, at the moment, are the people we will need to place in stasis for the duration. However, once the first tower is complete, I'm planning to give first priority to the friends and family of the people delving for crystals."

Mike nodded. "I take it when you mention those other tasks; you're expecting people to use magic to accomplish them?"

"It takes two hundred and fifty mana crystals and ten minutes to push someone from level zero to level five. Along the way, they can pick up the skills necessary for the tasks they'll be performing," Bob explained. "It's not a permanent choice, reincarnation is available, so if they'd like to do something else after the project is complete, they're not forced to keep their initial selections," he added, "although choosing something for which the skills will form a foundation of something you want to do is the best choice."

"I'll pass the word along," Mike said, "it'll help with the decisions as to who should be brought over when."

"We'll keep it in mind as well," Dave promised, slinging an arm around Amanda. "We're calling it a night, going to play a little 5e with the group," Amanda said, "you're welcome to join us if you'd like."

"Too much work to do," Bob shook his head, "every time I turn around, it's something else."

"Soon though," Jack grinned, "we need another DPS for the Tomb," he waved and headed back into the tavern with Amanda and Dave, Raul following behind them.

Mike coughed. "Not to add to the weight," he said, "but there is also the ongoing question about how exactly you're going to distribute the crystals."

Bob shook his head, mentally shifting gears. "I'm keeping all the crystals, at least initially, to dig more Dungeons, dig Dungeons deeper, and cast the rituals to regenerate people," Bob sighed, "I'll hand them back out for people to level up with as new floors of the Dungeon become available, and this way I'll also be able to keep track of the King's tax."

"I did some loose math, and I think if we can get everything up and running, with enough people, we could realistically see all forty Dungeons pulling in forty-four million crystals a day from the five deepest floors, and probably half again that from the remaining. One hundred million crystals a day is not outside the realm of possibility," Bob squinted thoughtfully, "the problem is, once we have that going, that's still only a million people a day being placed in stasis, which isn't close to enough."

"I'd wondered about that," Mike grumbled, "didn't seem like the math would add up."

"Once things get rolling, I'll need to have maybe a hundred people with Curator paths being carried by Endless Swarm groups," Bob admitted, "and I'll also have to scout out, or have someone scout out, other places where we can drop Dungeons and build towers."

"Curator?" Mike asked.

"Curator is a special path that requires you to take the four divine elemental schools first and ritual magic. So when you hit level five and take your path, you don't have shit for combat," Bob explained, "but you pick up a ton of skills along the way up, all of which are perfect for being able to build a Dungeon. It's a really versatile path, and if you can get your hands on a Divine Elemental Affinity Crystal, it's powerful as well."

He sighed. "Sadly, the only place I know of that drops those is in Harbordeep, and I'm not going back there."

"Send some of the Endless kids," Mike suggested, "they're bored and looking for something to do."

"It's too expen...." Bob paused.

"Just remembered that they're giving you truckloads of crystals, didn't you?" Mike asked him with a grin.

"I did, in fact, just remember that," Bob admitted. "They wouldn't give a shit about paying a thousand crystals to delve for a week."

"That's one problem solved," Mike's grin was smug. "Offer these curators an Affinity Crystal for each of the elements, get them leveled up, and put them to work."

Bob nodded thoughtfully.

"Also," Mike added, "Annisa showed up to do the reincarnation rituals, so I sent her back to Earth with Waters."

"You'll have some officers to help organize this shit show," Mike said approvingly.

"You sent Annisa to Earth?" Bob asked.

"Once I managed to get her to turn down that aura of hers," Mike growled. "That beauty attribute is bullshit, by the way. I could barely keep my eyes respectful," he grumbled.

"It doesn't seem to affect me," Bob replied absentmindedly, "I'm just worried about sending a member of the Church of the Light to Earth," he hesitated, "I don't think it's an issue for Annisa, but some of them are a little bit heavy on the zealotry, forever seeking out 'the shadow,'" Bob finished with air quotes.

"I'd be more worried about her causing traffic accidents," Mike shook his head.

Elizabeth looked at the letter, a sneer of disgust marring her features.

She was, above all else, a scholar. Dealing with people who not only lacked knowledge but eschewed the very pursuit of it, deeming it abhorrent, rankled.

Mr. Whitman's mother was a perfect example of that sort. A high school dropout, who infrequently worked as an exotic dancer, while from her arrest record, working more steadily as a prostitute. Under normal circumstances, their paths would have never crossed, but an overly ambitious attorney, seeing the opportunity to cash in on the unfortunate accident that everyone had believed had cost Mr. Whitman his life, had tracked her down.

He'd filed on her behalf while forcing her into rehab. The lawsuit was settled out of court when Ms. Whitman had emerged, portraying herself as a devastated mother who had turned her life around in order to seek justice for her son.

That was how he'd portrayed it, and the law firm representing the university and the lab had decided it would be convincing enough to make a trial a risky proposition.

The decision was made to settle out of court.

She sighed, dropping the letter onto her desk and leaning back into her chair. The lawyer was adamant that Mr. Whitman's mother's pain and suffering remained just cause for the settlement and was likely searching for Mr. Whitman.

Elizabeth was searching for him as well, although she simply wished to have the man sign an out-of-court settlement, although for a lesser amount. The law firm had suggested that they seek to overturn the original settlement, but she didn't have any desire to risk reopening that particular event. No, she'd happily pay Mr. Whitman a few million dollars to go away, which was something he seemed to have developed quite the talent for.

Standing from her desk, she pulled on her jacket and juggled her purse. She was due a report from the private investigators hired by the law firm, and she hoped they'd exhibit more professionalism than they had when they'd run into the investigators who had likely been hired by Ms. Whitman's attorney.